Intercourse Denise Spellberg and the Prophet She Rode In On.
"There is a long history of anti-Islamic polemic that uses sex and violence to attack the Prophet and his faith. This novel follows in that oft-trodden path, one first pioneered in medieval Christian writings." - Professor Denise Spellberg
"Allah decrees that a marriage should be based on give-and-take. That's why, by the age of nine, a girl should be able to give head and take a punch." - Prophet Muhammad
For those of you who might not have been following this story, here's a little bit o' background: An author by the name of Sherry Jones had penned a book called The Jewel of Medina*, which is a fictional account of the life of Aisha, one of the Prophet Muhammad's wives. The book got picked up by Random House (for $100,000: which means I should write a series of books about Muhammad's other wives battling crime in space while clad in bikinis) who sent Denise Spellberg, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and an expert on Aisha, a copy of the book and asked her to write a blub for the book's jacket (Spellberg was already under contract to Random House for a booked titled Jefferson's Koran**). To say that Ms. Spellberg was not happy with what she read would be an understatement.
Since this site's stock in trade is ridiculing illiterate Fundie hicks, you might be wondering what transgression a seasoned academic like Professor Spellberg could've committed to land on RATYHTL. First, Spellberg contacted Random House to inform them that, in her opinion, The Jewel of Medina was more than likely to incite radical Muslims to acts of violence. If that's all she had done, we could probably dismiss this whole thing by saying "Hey, maybe she was just trying to warn her publisher. And maybe she forgot to include the words ‘but I think you should still publish the book, piece of crap that it is; just leave my name off of it'". Unfortunately, Spellbergs's next step was to alert Shahed Amanullah, who runs a popular Muslim Web site, that something offensive this way comes (It really didn't improve matters when Spellberg deemed the book to be "soft core pornography"), thus helping to fulfill her own prediction.
Long-story-short: Random House dropped Sherry Jones, so she went with another publisher whose home was firebombed this morning.
Don't get me wrong; I do not feel that Denise Spellberg is in any way was responsible for instigating the firebombing. Fundies are always looking for an excuse to blow things up. I'm just taking this rare opportunity to shine the spotlight on a educated person who did a very stupid thing.
* "O.J. Symposia"????
** Oh, like that's not gonna piss anyone off